


Seethe

by way1203



Series: Bottled In [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Creepy The Handler (Umbrella Academy), Dysfunctional Family, Exhausted Number Five | The Boy, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Mental Health Issues, Number Five | The Boy Deserves Better, Number Five | The Boy Has Been Through Quite A Lot, Number Five | The Boy Has Feelings, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Throws More Than One Tantrum, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, Number Five | The Boy is So Done, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Stressed Number Five | The Boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27056953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/way1203/pseuds/way1203
Summary: Five never thought a snack cake would make him lose it.Had it been a trying couple of days? Yes. Had his patience reached its breaking point more than once in the last seven hours alone? Absolutely. Had he expected a vending machine to be the final straw? Not exactly.OrFive is under a lot of stress when the Fudge Nutter gets stuck in the vending machine and begins what winds up being an irritating day in the name of a briefcase.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy), Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Series: Bottled In [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974742
Comments: 14
Kudos: 212
Collections: Luna Currently Reading List





	Seethe

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who read Strain! I promised you more so here's another. This one ended up much longer than I anticipated because every time I thought I was done, I thought of something else to add. I wanted to explore the scenes in S2E7 & the beginning of E8 because quite a lot happens and Five is visibly distraught more than once. 
> 
> TW: references to the S2 Board scene, references past interactions with The Handler and Five's discomfort

Five never thought a snack cake would make him lose it.

Had it been a trying couple of days? Yes. Had his patience reached its breaking point more than once in the last seven hours alone? Absolutely. Had he expected a vending machine to be the final straw? Not exactly. Sure he'd planned for his temper to reach its breaking point the moment he knocked on Elliott's door. Agitation pretty much came with the whole saving-his family-from-the-apocalypse territory at this point. In fact, he'd even made mental preparations for the moment one of his siblings managed to make him lose his shit. But all of that didn't matter at the moment because instead of his siblings or the Swedes or The Handler being the sole reason for his explosion, it was food and a vending machine.

Not even that ill-fated Twinkie in the apocalypse had made Five this distressed. The fact that a Fudge Nutter was the cause for this particular breakdown made him want to scream.

The last time he'd been this frustrated over food, he'd been in the apocalypse and literally stumbled over a crate of possible rations in a half-demolished convenience store. It'd been roughly four days since his last bit of food, and his gut became a gnawing, aching thing that reminded him over and over what he'd been lacking as his powers responded with dull throbs that radiated within his bones. He barely had the strength to drag the crate to his wagon under the overcast sky. What he'd found turned out to be a rancid mess burnt beyond edibility with melted plastic surrounding some of the contents. Starving, exhausted, losing hope of finding anything, and unable to cry due to dehydration, he kicked it and crawled back inside, searching for something, _anything_ , to eat.

Today, proved equally, if not more, upsetting than that day (and he wasn't even in the process of starving to death).

The task should have been effortless for someone of his caliber. Given his level of experience, and with his powers factored in, killing the Board would require minimal effort and prove much less time-consuming for Five compared to any other Commission assassin. He could have it done in a few minutes, tops. However, to complete a task of that magnitude, his energy level would have to be at its peak, which meant he'd have to eat first. He wasn't depleted to the point of shaking, nor was he particularly hungry, but he did need food to handle this task. Annoying, but he'd spotted a vending machine in the corridor, so it would be easy.

Enter that fucking Fudge Nutter.

Before he set about killing the Board, Five planned to eat the Fudge Nutter because it would've given him enough energy to take out each person with whatever weapons were available using quick and efficient jumps with little to no pauses in between. It would be simple.

He needed something quick, something sugary. So Five felt lucky when he caught sight of the vending machine. He was in the eighties, an era of fairly decent junk food, so his options would be decent. He got change for a dollar and found himself in front of the machine before the manager could think too hard about his commentary on days and death. A quick skim of his options proved that the stars must have aligned. The moment he saw the Fudge Nutter, relief slipped over him as he typed in the alphanumeric combo to get his snack. Nuts and chocolate meant the perfect blend of protein and sugar. Eating the whole thing would get him through this, back to 1963, and to his next cup of coffee before he got his family back to 2019. It was perfect. 

He'd been arrogant and downright foolish to count on that vending machine to give him that fucking Fudge Nutter.

Five needed—no, he absolutely _required_ —that snack because it would have provided sufficient energy. He learned long ago the importance of eating or drinking before using his powers for an extended period. Five had, for the most part, accepted his limitations, but he still had moments when he pushed himself to jump on low to no energy. His father literally beat it into him on more than one occasion that his limits were in his mind and he, despite himself, believed the bastard when times got desperate. The day he blinked his way to the apocalypse was one of those times. After discovering his siblings in the destruction, Five made himself sick trying to blink back in time, refusing to accept the reality that was his powers and his sapped energy. The only thing he managed to do was jump back a few seconds, a book that fell off the remnants of the living room bookcase falling again when he did. He didn't know how he rewound time but he still tried to repeat it. No matter how hard he thought, or how hard he pushed against the blue sputtering in his palms like dying embers, he couldn't send himself back in time to make the book fall again—let alone blink himself back far enough to see his siblings alive as adults or teenagers. He had realized then, as his powers numbed his fingertips and forced his stomach to kick up his last home-cooked meal, that he was stuck. He'd collapsed to the ground, curled into himself, and cried.

See, that was the thing about his powers. If he pushed them, they pushed back with a vengeance.

Sometimes it was nausea or a blistering headache, other times it was a nosebleed or numb extremities. Either way, his powers always got him back for their overuse. His abilities had the potential to be rather temperamental on a good day, but then he'd managed to accidentally jump into the apocalypse and that wasteland only emphasized what he already knew: he needed food or, at minimum, water to jump without any problems or side effects. It was just a harsh truth: eat something, or inadvertently fuck up or get fucked up (or worse both). Five grew to hate himself for a lot of things—the fact that he'd spent that last meal stewing over how to approach his father instead of eating always came in at the top. Sometimes he wondered what would've happened if he'd eaten just a little bit more that day, if just one more bite could've saved him from hell.

Now that he'd had decades to hone his skills between the apocalypse and the Commission, Five had a firm handle on the energy it would take to complete certain tasks. Take his coffee addiction for instance. He drank java because it tasted great, yes, but it gave him extended energy without having to eat. Eating, particularly when trying to stop the first apocalypse and now that they were headed for a second in the wrong timeline, slowed him down. A meal could last anywhere between fifteen to thirty minutes if it was simple. If it was a meal similar to the ones he'd had in his preteen years that consisted of a handful of courses, it could last hours. Long or short, that was time that could be spent doing anything else. Even if he multitasked and ate fast, Five would still only have an acceptable level of productivity for maybe a fraction of those minutes—and when you're trying to stop the apocalypse you need every second you can get. Coffee also didn't run the risk of giving him food poisoning, something he couldn't afford to have while trying to save his family again. Food poisoning absorbed time and energy. It also had a horrible tendency to seep into his powers and affect his abilities. (The Twinkie left him fighting with his powers against what he could only describe as aftershocks that made his powers malfunction for a week after his body healed.) So he just avoided eating and focused on drinking instead. Besides, the quick minutes he lost in sporadic trips to the bathroom were ultimately less burdensome than the chunks of time he lost sitting down to eat and digest a plate of something other than a fluffernutter sandwich. It was easier that way. However, there were times when he had no choice but to eat something. 

This was one of those times.

It was supposed to be _simple_. Get change, put it in the machine, wolf down the sugariest non-candy snack he could buy, and do what he didn't want to do but had no choice but to do because his siblings were who they were and he had to do everything like last time because no one took him, or the threat of the apocalypse, seriously.

Would this be frustrating? Yes. Inconvenient? Incredibly. But above all, this was _supposed_ to be easy.

But, of course, it wasn't. 

_Why couldn't it be quick and simple?_ thought Five. _Just once!_

But it couldn't because nothing ever was these last few days. And that? That bothered the _hell_ out of Five because just once, _just once,_ he needed something to go according to plan. Yet here he was in the middle of stopping a second fucking apocalypse so, _of course,_ that damn vending machine became another cog in the universe's plan to effectively thwart his objectives.

And _that?_ Well, _that_ just sent him over the deep end.  
  


* * *

  
In hindsight, Five knew he was long overdue for a shit fit.

He'd already been pushing himself to his limits _before_ he landed in 1963, not to even mention after. Plus, his siblings seemed to have lost even more brain cells between the jump and living through months (and even years) in this timeline. Then, he had to make a deal with _her_ , so now he had to kill the Board, something he without a doubt did _not_ want to do, all because she said he had to and, fuck, he _hated_ that the universe kept forcing him to rely on her when he was at his most desperate. Five hated the hold The Handler had on him. It made him physically ill if he thought too much about it. During the beginning of his time in the Commission, he'll admit he owed her. She got him out of the apocalypse and that meant that if she said bow, he'd get on his knees, kiss the ring, and lick her designer stilettos (something he'd actually had to do once and _yes_ , he _still_ felt ashamed about it). Now his debt was long-since paid and he owed her nothing. He hated that he had to meet with her when trying to stop the first apocalypse and he hated that their paths had crossed now. The Handler was a last resort—a messy, gut-wrenching, last-ditch effort to keep his family safe and living.

He hated it.

If it wasn't for The Handler, he wouldn't be here now, staring at a Fudge Nutter (one he needed to eat to complete a task _she_ wanted him to carry out) that was stuck in the rings with no hint of falling. A more creative part of his mind considered the Fudge Nutter a metaphor for his existence at the moment. He, like the Fudge Nutter, found himself trapped and unable to conclude the mission he set out to complete.

Equating himself to a fucking Fudge Nutter. Now he really _was_ losing his marbles.

Five hated this vending machine as much as he hated the apocalypse and almost as much as he hated The Handler—and he hated almost everything about her if he were honest. He detested the way she always thought she had the upper hand. He hated that she could often match him at being steps ahead on the chessboard. He found that venomous smile of hers as particularly irritating as those eyes that made it painfully clear how much control she had over any given situation. Then the way he always had to think about what ways she could manipulate a situation and thus him set Five on edge. But what he hated most about her was the way she kept _touching_ him.

She'd always literally taken a hands-on approach with anyone she encountered. When she wasn't physically touching the person, she filled their personal space and made them uncomfortable. It was how she asserted dominance. Five knew that. He saw right through that the moment he weighed whether or not he wanted to shake her hand and agree to her deal in the apocalypse. He saw it in the way everyone scuttled around and turned into sycophantic jellyfish when she entered the Commission. He saw this facet of her worsen during his years as their golden boy.

Five was touch-adverse on a good day, it was something he'd always had lurking inside him. It wasn't that he hated the occasional hug or hand on his shoulder, quite the opposite. It was just that by the time he was twelve, he had to stop his reflex to flinch if someone touched him when he hadn't expected it. From what he remembered, Vanya, Ben, and even Diego had similar reactions. They were a family of flinchers. Statues, freezing whenever anyone got too close. Even Klaus, despite his tendency to drape himself over everything and everyone and be the first person to pull his siblings in for a hug and a peck on the top of the head, would flinch or freeze. For some of them, it came from group training sessions where they had to take each other down. For others, it came from private training sessions where Reginald would occasionally take to beating them. For Five, Klaus, and Ben (and Five's seventy-seven percent sure Vanya too because he witnessed it happen twice over his short years in the Academy), part of it came from the unexpected moments in the manor when they'd receive a harsh backhand from their father or the sharp strike from his cane.

So when The Handler came along and would touch his shoulder or give him a pat on the back, despite being in his fifties, Five used every ounce of his energy to hold back a flinch or he would just blink away from her entirely so she wouldn't get close. He used so much energy jumping away from her sudden attempts at contact. But there was once when he wasn't quite fast enough. He remembered everything about that day and it made him nauseous. It was one instance shortly after he'd started working in the Commission that—and this moment was brief and something he didn't even like to think about—she'd kissed him. He'd been wearing a suit the Commission had provided for him, his hair slicked back, his aged face clean-shaven. He left a dressing room and was on his way to grab a briefcase when she'd stepped forward and kissed him. He flinched, pushed her away, and blinked into a private room in a separate hallway where he'd had a panic attack. The next time he saw her, she respected his space. She even stopped attempting to touch him altogether for a while. He'd thought she'd gotten it out of her system.

But then Five ended up in his teenage body and well...

It seemed she took his young body as an invitation to touch him again. It never made sense to him when she did it. He found her renewed habit strange and unwarranted. A bop on the nose with her manicured finger, a stroke of his face, a hand on his shoulders before he shrugged her away. It made him uncomfortable but he played it off because he figured she was taking it upon herself to act motherly (though he never remembered Grace's touches feeling _this_ unsettling). He explained it away by reminding himself that was a kid again, and he was sure it fascinated her. She was acting this way, squishing his cheeks because he was so _adorable_ , commenting on his new appearance because he had a poisonous baby face and she couldn't help herself to see how it felt.

But then he couldn't ignore it so easily because she just wouldn't _stop_. He made it his policy years ago to never be alone with her longer than necessary, and he renewed it now that she was doing this again. Her touches led to more uncomfortable moments like the bathroom incident (which made his heart pound out of his chest whenever he thought about it for too long afterward because what the actual fuck _was_ that?). The way she peered over the stall door at him, grinning like the literal Cheshire Cat she was, made him glad his pants were up. He knew she knew he was trying to look at the file, and he knew that it was her way of showing him that she'd caught onto his plans. It was that dominance again. He knew that. She wouldn't have gone into the bathroom and made a spectacle of herself yammering about her burnt palate if she wasn't trying to make a point (and possibly give him time to hide the red folder she definitely knew he had). But it still gave him a chill nonetheless.

Then there were the comments about his shorts and the moment in the hotel room—it all made him more than a little apprehensive. Maybe it was that part of his brain that made him occasionally feel like his body's age, but sometimes, and he felt almost embarrassed even admitting it (he was an assassin for Christ's sake!), it made him downright _scared_. At this point, he knew The Handler was doing it on purpose. She enjoyed the power she could wield over people, and physical discomfort was the way she chose to remind them that she was very much in charge. Now that he was like this, it was far too easy for her to assert her position and use it to make Five do things in the name of saving his family when he was out of options. Things like killing the Board because she could get him a briefcase. Christ, Five hated the puppet he'd become.

So, if he had to itemize his current situation, Five had put up with quite a fucking lot over the last week or two, and dealing with The Extra-Handsy Handler™ who kept asserting her dominance with nose-boops and manipulations wasn't exactly helping his stress levels.

Problem Number Two: his family's idiocy was really gnawing at his patience. (Truthfully, if Diego said the initials JFK one more goddamn time, Five wasn't sure he'd be able to stop himself from yanking out his brother's vocal cords through his nostrils).

Problem Number Two, Section Two: There was Lila, and the fact that his aforementioned brother couldn't keep it in his pants long enough to _not_ jeopardize them by getting involved with her and thus The Handler and the damn Commission. Oh hell, who was he kidding? Lila was Problem Number Three because he felt in his gut that there was another shoe there that hadn't exactly dropped just yet.

Problem Numbers Three and more were, well, they consisted of several things including, and not limited to: the fact that Vanya had what seemed to be some level of dissociative amnesia, Klaus starting a cult and continuously lying about Ben's presence for some dumbass reason, and Allison being so into her new husband and life that she was as reluctant as Vanya to leave this timeline. Not to mention Luther, the fucking stubborn daddy's boy who threw him off a flight of stairs (just when he'd started to find him more tolerable too. Shame). He wasn't sure how, but once they were back in 2019, Five was going to get him back for that. Then there was Diego and his fixation on Reginald and JFK. So he was up to at least seven problems.

Problem Number Eight: the goddamn apocalypse was right around the corner _again_ (which, that was worth at least _ten_ additional problems if Five was honest with himself).

The current problem, Problem Number Nine (or Nineteen, rather) was the briefcase and his current mission-in-progress of traveling to 1982 to assassinate the Board because he'd run out of options at this point and he was truly desperate.

And those were just the problems off the top of his _head_. He didn't even include the IKEA Mafia, who was still very much out there and after them, or the undoubted lasting consequences of his siblings living in this timeline for too long because he accidentally put them here.

Fuck. Fucking goddamn pot of shit-heel _fucks._

With nineteen (oh, what the hell, make it twenty-five!) problems on his current _To-Solve_ list, of course the vending machine blocking a necessary source of energy set him off.

If Five had to level with himself, the distress of his current situation would've broken anyone by now. The need for a proper shit fit would have hit anyone else during the first apocalypse. He was in the middle of stopping a second and he was doing pretty alright, all things considered. He'd proven himself stronger because he'd kept his shit together. He succeeded in _not_ throwing a full-fledged _toddler-in-a-grocery-store_ level tantrum these last several days, 2019 apocalypse included. He'd kept his composure firm, despite it slipping apart in his hands like clay on a potter's wheel, and carried on. Or, rather, he _had_ kept his composure until his snack got stuck.

Five had inserted the coins into the machine and keyed in the numbers with the expectation that his snack would fall. It was supposed to fall. That was the plan for fuck's sake. Instead, it remained trapped behind the metal coil, sending the bubbling pot of frustration behind his eyes boiling over at an uncontrollable rate. And that was it.

That was the final straw.

Five lost his absolute shit.

"Stupid mother Fudge Nutter!"

He grunted and slammed his body into the snack machine in a fit of rage. He wondered how he looked right now, probably like a spoiled teen destroying property for the hell of it in the middle of a hallway. That, or maybe a teen throwing a tantrum. Either way, he honestly didn't care. The people in this inn had no idea the kind of pressure he was under.

"Fucking...Fudge Nutter!"

This was the last thing he needed. He _had to_ eat something. He couldn't take out that many people without at least some coffee or something high in sugar. Water stations were all around but they wouldn't be enough. Not for a job of this size. Not when he was already significantly low in his energy levels. Why did everything have to be a fucking challenge all the time? This was supposed to be _simple_. He could kill people in his sleep. Getting a snack and taking out the board should have been simple.

Fuck, he was so frustrated, so stressed, so _tired_.

His foot smashed the glass in a final blow. With the machine effectively busted, Five stepped back and looked around the hall. He hadn't attracted any attention. He rubbed the back of his neck. It would be more beneficial if he took the rest of his rage out on the Board.

But there was still the little issue that was food and the fact that his powers needed energy and—

Then he saw it.

Five had never been so happy to see a sheet cake in his entire life. Maybe the universe wasn't being a total asshole.

He dug a thick swipe of icing out of the side and grabbed an axe off the wall to carry out his task. The frosting wouldn't be enough, not by a long shot, but it would help him get most of the job done. He mentally swore as he rolled his shoulders. Frosting was essentially only sugar. For Five, plain sugar was quick energy when he didn't have time for anything else, but it had the potential to dissipate before he had a chance to get started. It sucked and it sometimes made his body ache as it faded away if he pushed too far. That's why he needed the Fudge Nutter, the nuts would have offset the sugar and helped his energy last longer.

But that snack machine ruined his plan, so he'd just have to handle this on frosting and pure rage.

Fine.

His heart thudded when he raised the axe. He didn't want to do this. Five mentally reached for the autopilot button of his muscle memory, hoping to detach himself from The Handler's handpicked task. Frosting still on his tongue, he swallowed and swung the blade onto a woman's arm. The frustration of the disaster that was his life over the last two weeks set in. The little nugget in his brain cultivated from years of being the Commission's top assassin, of being able to do excellent jobs, of being praised for his work, made this job all at once more appealing. If done in his usual capacity, he'd be able to get what he wanted (the briefcase to get his family home) and do a job that no one in the Commission or otherwise had ever managed to complete. The anxiety in his chest shifted into a twisted sort of excitement.

Five smiled.

Oh, this... _this_ was gonna be fun.  
  


* * *

  
Five felt his lack of energy after the first blink. His powers required him to stop a time or two to take a second before proceeding. He relied on a cup of water in the room to help him keep blinking, but he managed to handle the Board, knock out the fanny pack lady, perform a smackdown to AJ's body, collect fish AJ and locate a bag and water to put him in before he died, then return to the alley in 1963.

Some might call it all a dangerous culmination of a long-overdue tantrum. To Five, it was a blur of frosting, blood, and rage.

Now that he'd gotten his frustrations out on the snack machine with his body, with an axe on the Board members, and with a cricket bat to AJ's head tank, he felt calmer than he had in a few days. However, he had a brick in his gut from the shame. He'd essentially blacked out, losing his fucking mind for the full two minutes, perhaps a minute and a half, it took him to kill the board and snag AJ's slippery fish body off the carpet. His eyes had lit up a few times as he hacked at each member. Now they were dull, exhausted, and steeped in reality.

Five stood in the alley. _Fuck,_ he thought. 

He'd been trying not to kill as much since being back with his family. It was something that, like Hazel, he was growing weary of doing. After years of assassinations, to say it weighed on him was an understatement. Causing death had weighed on him since the first time he'd accidentally killed someone during a mission as a kid. He hadn't been alone in this—between himself and three of his siblings, they'd managed to kill a number of criminals and villains. It was never something they'd done intentionally or made a habit of doing; it was just something that kinda... _happened_. They were extraordinary kids being forced to use their powers against other people and play heroes before they had a firm handle on what they could do and how they could do it without injuries or fatalities. Once, Allison's rumor went a bit too far and the criminal killed himself. She disappeared into her room for a day and a half before Reginald literally dragged her out and later forced her to try it again during another mission. Diego didn't speak for weeks after he curved a knife the wrong way and slit a man's throat. Ben understandably grew quieter as instances of his monsters slicing through people's bodies increased (though their father's constant encouragement for them to push Ben to use his powers for taking out rogues always unsettled Five).

Before the apocalypse, Five killed one person. It was an accident, a haphazard jump mixed with his poorly placed elbow to the robber's temple and he'd managed to send the guy collapsing to the ground. Once they got home, he locked himself away in one of the empty rooms on the other side of the house where no one could find him and cried, shouted, and wished he could just be ordinary. He hated it. For the Commission to make killing Five's job felt too much like one of his father's classic punishments, handcrafted to make him the cold weapon Reginald always wanted. It was a cosmic joke almost, but he did it nonetheless. It became a parcel of sorts that pressed down on his shoulders despite how often he tried to make it seem as though it hadn't affected him. It remained saddled against him throughout the years, following and haunting him not unlike the spirits Klaus attempted to drink and drug away.

Being around his family, seeing them alive in the bodies he'd painstakingly buried, it all reminded Five of what he'd missed and why he worked so hard to get it back. It also reminded him of, well, himself, and who he was, what his life was like before those three spite-filled jumps and the apocalypse and the Commission—who he could be once he saved his family and righted things. No more killing for the Commission. Five told himself back after that first night in Griddy's, in no uncertain terms, that he was done with that life. As he carved that tracker out of his arm, bodies littered around the place that held some of the few truly amazing memories of his days growing up with his siblings, he decided he was done. No more killing at all if he could help it. He would put the Commission behind him the same way he put bad memories of his father in a locked box in the back of the cupboard in his mind.

He thought he'd managed to do it until this necessary slip-up. Now he was truly done. He didn't want to do this anymore. More accurately, he _couldn't_ do this anymore. He didn't have it in him to continue pulling jobs like this. What upset him the most was that The Handler already knew this and didn't care. He knew she knew he didn't want to continue doing this, that's why she gave him a promotion to management when he dealt with the first apocalypse. Yet, she'd still given him the task of taking out the Board because she wanted to push him back into a life he'd outgrown. He hated this.

He hated her.

Five sighed. When The Handler got here, he'd tell her how done he was and make it clear there would be no more of this. No more killing. His eyes welled and he focused his attention on scraping blood off his fingernails with his thumb. It would take some time to scrub his skin clean, not to mention his clothes. While he did manage to acquire another dress shirt while here, he was pretty much stuck cleaning everything else. He couldn't exactly pack for an accidental leap from 2019 to 1963—he hadn't planned to make this mistake. He'd been stuck in the same clothes for days like a cartoon character and gross didn't even begin to scratch the surface of how he felt. He hadn't had time to hand wash and dry his singular outfit, he'd been too busy. If he thought too hard about when the last time it was that he changed, he'd probably lose his shit again.

So instead he thought back to the Board. He'd nearly had AJ when he was tackled to the ground.

> _"I ain't afraid of you, ya little pus ball!"_

The fanny pack lady, Kathy the Manager, if he remembered her name badge correctly, seemed hell-bent on taking him out and her reasoning seemed ridiculous now that he stood in the alleyway.

She wanted him to pay for the snack machine he'd obliterated.

To say she had flaws in her priorities was an understatement. He was a thirteen-year-old boy standing on top of a table holding an axe near the back of a room filled with dead, bloody bodies. There was a person whose head he'd put through the damn fluorescent lights, their body dangling from the ceiling. There was a man with his entrails out on the floor. But no, none of that was a problem to her. The scene she'd entered in order to tackle him didn't faze her because Five busted the snack machine, and she decided that she was going to take him down because of _that_.

He scoffed out a laugh. A fearless woman, he'd give her that. Nice too during their coin interaction.

Five looked back down at his hands where the blood had caked around his cuticles.

He needed to get his family back to their timeline. Knowing that it was his fault his siblings were stuck fending for themselves without him for months and _years_ caused a level of guilt Five couldn't shake. Allison and Klaus had been his greatest concerns once he realized where and _when_ he'd unwittingly dropped them. He couldn't even begin to verbalize the relief that spread through him when he found both of his siblings alive and safe—not to mention the joy seizing his chest when he heard Allison, who only days ago scribbled notes to communicate, _speaking_ to him and Klaus with little to no effort. His siblings endured so much. He had to get them home. It wasn't an option—though his siblings struggled to agree. Didn't they see what he did for them before they ended up in Dallas? Didn't they understand the lengths at which he was going to fix this? Didn't they understand everything he was currently doing for them? His frown deepened. They wouldn't understand what he literally just _did_ for them in the name of a briefcase.

When The Handler arrived, Five handed her AJ without looking at her. He couldn't deal with this anymore.

He was done.

The Handler didn't believe it but she didn't have to. He knew it and that was enough.

At least he went out on a semi-high. At least this was it. He remained cautiously optimistic that, if everything went according to plan, this would be the last major thing he had to do to make sure they got home.  
  


* * *

  
Five was wrong. He hated that he was wrong. He knew that The Handler would be up to something, he'd be a fool not to. The job was too big to not have strings. She always had an ace up her sleeve, and there was always a catch. He'd expected maybe her framing him or possibly having to complete another task.

This wasn't the task he expected. Getting every Hargreeves sibling into the alley on time wasn't too much to ask—but it absolutely _was_ too much to ask.

The moment Klaus projectile vomited all over the pavement Five was one hundred thousand percent done. He knew they were fucked once The Handler gave him a time limit but he didn't think they would be _this_ fucked. Five mentally replayed the last hour. He'd done everything _right_.

After cleaning up and changing, Five stated that they had 77 minutes, but then Diego had to be stubborn. They were left with roughly 75 minutes by the time Five finished threatening him. Vanya proved equally stubborn and, after nearly getting into a power showdown with his sister, Five found himself cursing everyone's existence. He saw the likelihood of getting all their asses to the alley on time growing smaller by the minute. He suddenly understood Reginald's complaints whenever they struggled to be punctual for missions. Years later and they still couldn't get it together. At least then the stakes were significantly lower. Five cursed himself. He thought his siblings would surely get it together enough to go back to their original timeline. They'd been trapped in an intolerant hellscape for months and years. To Five, it was a no-brainer to get back to 2019. His siblings made it clear they thought otherwise.

He flung the suitcase into the sky and watched it go. He could feel Luther trying to get them to regroup, to calm him down and check on Klaus, but Five wasn't having it. He thought he'd gotten all of his rage out in 1982, but he was wrong. Another fit was brewing and he was too frustrated with his siblings to try to hide it in front of them.

"We were that close," sighed Five. " _That close_."

They had one job. One job. He'd taken the bulk of the jobs for both apocalypses. All they had to do for this one was show up in an alley. Why the _fuck_ was that so hard? Self-absorbed pieces of shit, the lot of them.

"Now what?" asked Luther and oh, it made something in Five itch. Luther was supposed to be Number One, wasn't he? He should let the oaf take a stab at being the one to come up with a plan this time. The tallest Hargreeves brother looked at him with an expression that definitely didn't help the situation.

"Now nothing, Luther, alright?!" Five spat. Anger made him pace around the alley, his irritation reaching a level his tiny body couldn't contain. "Make your peace with God."

"What? What about Allison and Vanya?"

And, see, that little comment wasn't helping either. "Screw them both, alright!" snapped Five. "They should have been here."

He'd expected Allison's name from his brother's mouth but not Vanya's. If what he'd learned about Luther's actions during the first apocalypse were correct, the asshole had no right to ask about their sister considering his brilliantly dangerous plan to trap her in a room against her will and without their siblings' agreement. But the anger flared too bright in his chest and he couldn't tamp down its flames. The thought of his sisters and their hesitation to leave the lives they'd carved set him off even more—particularly when he thought of Vanya and the way she flared her powers at him and the near violent clash they'd had on the side of the road over two people who would very much cause major time reverberations should they be removed from their timeline. Vanya had no idea the intricacies of the inner workings of time. Hell, she didn't fully understand her own _powers_ (granted, not her own fault, but _still_ ). She had no concept of what the Commission was capable of doing to rectify any discrepancies, and he was sure she didn't care. Just like Allison didn't care, just like his brothers didn't care. No one in his ridiculous family gave a shit except for him. Well, maybe Ben cared, but who knew because that would require Klaus telling the damn truth about their brother's presence.

Luther made that face again and Five wanted to explode. 

Was what he said mean? Probably. Did he care? Nope. He didn't have the luxury to care if his words hurt anyone. He had to come up with a new goddamn plan to get them out of this fucking timeline because his sisters and brother couldn't be arsed to come to the alley on time. He handed them their tickets back home to 2019 on a silver platter with synchronized watches for Christ's sake!

Five started kicking various things in the alley. He was sure he looked like the child he physically was but he couldn't bring himself to care. He was too pissed.

Then Klaus—oh, lovable, playful, oblivious Klaus—opened his mouth. "What about _Diego_? He's quite a responsible young man, no?"

And all Five could do was slam his foot against a pile of boxes in annoyance because Diego and his ridiculous hero complex was the first person to challenge his plan to get home. He knew this wasn't Klaus's fault—Klaus had followed the directions. He may have been thrashing and puking but, against all odds, he was _there_ with time to spare. Everyone else, however...

"Something must've happened to them." Luther's Number One tone settled over the situation and Five wanted to slam his foot somewhere else.

"Screw Diego, alright? Screw everybody!" Fuck 'em all, really, but he didn't want to deal with Luther's inevitable warning of _'Language'_ should he let them know how fucking over this supposed team he was. When it seemed that he couldn't throw a proper shit fit in the sightlines of his brothers, Five's mind went for the next best thing: a well-targeted rant of his true emotions that would undoubtedly hurt his siblings the exact way they'd hurt him by not having their shit together and not listening to him. "I was better off on my own in the apocalypse."

" _Five!_ Come on."

Oh, good! It worked. Too bad he wasn't even close to done. "You know what, Luther?" Five threw his arms out. "It's every sibling for himself now. How 'bout that?"

He made his way to the door. He needed to get out of this alley before he punched someone. The sadness in Klaus's eyes burned worse than the disappointment in Luther's. Five made a point not to blink through the door. One, because he needed to save what little was left of his energy for what he needed to do next, and two, because he wanted to be a tad dramatic and punctuate his last line with a door slam to truly get the point across that they'd succeeded in making him beyond livid.

He briefly heard Klaus whine, "Did Five just...get _meaner_?"

 _No,_ Five thought, storming his way up the stairs. _I didn't get meaner. I've gotten fed the fuck up with everyone's selfishness._

There was only one way they'd be able to get a briefcase now and Five wasn't looking forward to what he was going to have to endure to retrieve it. He needed a moment by himself to think through everything and—

"Hey!" Luther's voice was an unwelcome addition to this moment. Why couldn't he just leave him alone? He spared his brother half a glance but continued climbing the stairs and wishing he had enough energy to blink away.

"Five, doomsday is still coming." As if he didn't know that. "We gotta think of a new plan."

Five rolled his eyes and shouted, "Don't you get it, Luther? It's _over_ , alright? We're already dead!"

"Then where are you going?"

"I'm going to do the unthinkable."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Five gave an exasperated sigh. "I was _really_ hoping it wouldn't come to this."

"Come to _what_ , Five?"

If Luther could stop asking questions right now, he'd be happy. But of course, he couldn't leave well enough alone, so Five locked the door.

"Five! Five!"

Ignoring the pounding and Luther's calls became easier with each passing second. Five threaded his fingers through his hair. He hated this. He absolutely hated this. Five looked down at his hands. There was still blood around his cuticles and his power began to ache around his wrists and forearms. He needed coffee and maybe even a nap. He settled for a shower first, then possibly a nap. The inevitable fight with himself mixed with an equally inevitable case of severe paradox psychosis would be taxing on his small frame and energy levels. Rest would be essential. If nothing else it would calm him down enough to focus properly.

As much as he hated to waste clean water, he needed to spend at least a good fifteen minutes in the shower to scrub the memory and remnants of the Board's blood off his skin. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a proper shower. (Sometime during the middle of the first apocalypse, he was sure). A good shower would be helpful. It'd give him time to sort through everything that happened and how he'd manage to fight himself in the morning. Then he could afford to sleep for one to four hours max. He knew he needed at least five, if not a solid six hours but that was a luxury right now. He had time now, really. After all, his hands were tied until tomorrow morning. He had enough time to shower, eat a full meal, sleep a good eight hours, but he couldn't. There was too much to do, too much to sort.

He'd need to finish a pot of coffee in the morning and start drinking water to offset the thirst. Even then, that wouldn't save him from the risk littered throughout this plan. Five sighed.

"Shit."


End file.
